'Het' Series - All Liturgies

Prim Leaves her Father’s House
From the Song of Maybe

There came a time when Lord Hansa entered the hollow and singing hall of the multicolored Akaroth, for lunisnight celebrations. There was a great feast there for a fortnight or more, and there, caught in a heated philosophical fugue with Akaroth, Lord Hansa in anger committed the  violation of letting his pipe smoke rise and befoul the all-wind that permeated that house and nourished the ways of the void. Fueled by wine, Akaroth was driven into such a drunken rage by this insult that he harnessed fifty winds to his will and at once slew Hansa with a single stroke of his war fan and felt little regret at the time. Later, in grief, he did heavy penance for this act, for he slew a widely respected man, but all agreed that Lord Hansa had committed a grievous offense.

When Akaroth’s archons learned of this offense, they snatched up the cooling body of Lord Hansa and rode the void to his estate, and there they slew his servants in the multitude and cleft the skulls of his retainers and set fire and lightning upon the land. They tore apart the house of iron nails that stood on that land and within found Hansa’s virginal and radiant daughter Prim, who was preparing her father’s supper, as she did every night. “Look,” said Thunder Cleaves Stone, who was chief in majesty among the retainers of Akaroth, “here is that maid or daughter which he makes a slave. How piteous and crawling a thing!” They fell upon Prim and shaved her beautiful locks and in insult demanded black bread and liquor for hospitality, which she could not fulfill. “Dog!” said they, “and daughter of a dog, live a dog’s life!”, and threw they before her her father’s mangled corpse and left her raw with their laughter in the scoured and smoking ruin of her father’s estate. Later Akaroth learned of their conduct and was greatly enraged for Hansa had been a great wise man, and he had the Archons tied to a flensing tree which stretched the seven corners of the multiverse and there flayed them with lashes of lightning as they had flayed the house of Hansa, and all agreed this was just.

Prim was despondent but did not cry for there was no finer daughter. She took up her cloak and vela and great knife, and felt a little better, and she smeared the ashes of her father’s house on her face and body as was the custom, and she felt a little better, and she wrapped her father’s poor body in a linen shroud and she felt a little better still. She prepared to set upon the road, but she had never left her father’s house, and the thought terrified her, so she plucked a single iron nail from its smoking ruins and pocketed it. So comforted, she slung her father’s corpse over her small back and set off on the road of the Ruling King, which wound seven times through the void and the Wheel, and looked for a place to bury her father.

Soon she came upon a grand field on which the ground quickly became slick with the ruins of men and heaved with the wetness of lives smashed by incredible violence. The earth shook terribly, and carrion birds circled, and a mighty stench filled the air so that she was afraid and gripped her great knife. She came upon a devil there who was perched upon a corpse and gorged upon its eyes. “Look thee craven,” said the devil, “for great lords are doing battle here.”

Indeed, Prim shortly came upon a conflict so brutal that its noise split the earth and heavens both from end to end. The Gods Sivran and Ogam-am were settled in their destroyer aspects and were doing battle with their armies. Great tides of men and horses were dashed aside by their dueling, the ground shuddered and cracked, and the air was thick with the slurry of violence. Prim felt the coldness of fear in her heart, but gripped the iron nail in her pocket, and spoke in her small voice. “Great lords, where may I bury my father?” spoke she, and then again a score of times for her voice was weak and lost easily in the cacophony.

“Who is this ant,” howled Ogam, frothing with rage as he finally noticed her, spouting flame from his navel,”so ugly and ash covered?”

“It is Hansa Primpiyat, that small Prim who you may know, who was the daughter of a great man,” spoke Prim in her small voice, and both Gods ceased their brawling and craned to hear, for she was a piteous thing and they recognized her broken burden as the master Hansa. Prim shrank back, but it was a good question, and both Gods reposed a while to contemplated it, while the blood dripped and smoked from their wounds and their armies continued the slaughter.

“Bury him on the battlefield,” commanded Sivran after a while, “for then he will die a conqueror’s death, which is a righteous death of glory and struggle.”

“Bury him on the battlefield,” roared Ogam, as molten steel dripped from his mouth, “for it is not a weak and womanly death, and his mighty corpse deserves veneration!”

So agreed, both Gods returned to their mortal drama. Prim considered for a moment, and then followed their command, though she was struck more than once by a passing bolt or a hurtling stone, for though the lords’ advice was sound, they were mad with battle lust and thought little of the lives of small things.

Prim returned to the road, and bound her bleeding wounds, and slept, for she was weary, but barely a day had passed when she heard the voice of her father’s corpse rasping. “What a din!” he said, “I can barely sleep for this racket! What terrible excuse for a daughter has interred me in this madhouse!” Prim returned once again to the battlefield with fear and obedience in her heart and though she was struck by hails of bolts and the the gore of the ruins of men, she retrieved her father’s body.

Tired and encrusted with filth, Prim once again set on the road. She trod for many days more, and her fine vela became torn, her dress became ragged, her back ached, and her shoes ripped. Interdimensional winds lashed at her, the ground betrayed her, and she came to hate the very air. Eventually, she came to a place where the road met emptiness and there encountered the angel 7 Sound of Clear Water Through a Grove, which bade her halt. “Traveler,” said the angel in its middle voice, “you look sick and weary. The lady Pravi reposes not far from here. Please pay her a visit.” Prim reluctantly obeyed, for the filth and pain of the road was wearing on her, and strode towards a grove of white glass with swollen feet.

There in a rippling expanse of frozen space the lady Pravi was ensconced on her dais with all her court around her. Her scalp was burnished and oiled, her fingers were very well trained and elegant, her left half was singing a song of love, her right a song of longing, and her cleft form was lovely and sensual. Her court burned fragrant incense and sang accompaniment and bared their breasts to the cool infinity, and indeed it was an awesome sight to behold. Prim was pricked with fear, but she clutched the nail on her pocket and set on.

“What mud spattered vagrant and dirty thing defiles my presence,” spoke the right half of Pravi and the left half made a small gesture of cessation and the music stopped most painfully. “It is I,” spoke Prim in her small voice, “the orphan of Hansa.” Pravi was a poor and abused soul herself, though vain and self-indulgent, and she took pity upon Prim and her grisly burden. Her attendants bound Prim’s feet and layered oils upon them, and sang gently to blunt her pain and found fresh linens for Lord Hansa, though they gave her neither bread nor liquor, for fear of impurity, and did not attend to her wounds. “Great Lady of Pleasure and Enjoyment,” said Prim in her small voice, “where may I bury my father?”

“Bury him in a beautiful field,” said the left half of Pravi, “so he may repose in light and silence and warmth and rest in beauty and peace, for in all things these are good qualities. This is known by me.” And her right half proclaimed that this was good, and she called upon her attendants to oil her silky flesh and bring her fruit and that was that.

Prim considered this for a moment, and then followed her command. When she had done so, she set back upon the road, and lay down to sleep, as she was very tired and in great pain. Not a day had passed however, when she heard the voice of her father’s corpse. “What deafening silence!” it rasped, “What putrid soporific sweetness is this? How insipid and smothering a place to bury such a great man as me! What wasteful  and negligent daughter would do thus to a father?” So, Prim set back to that place, and wore out her boots to shreds, and went back on the road barefoot with her rotting burden.

Exhausted and smeared with grime and ash, Prim traveled for many days, where the road tore at her every minute and blackened her bare feet with blood and calluses. Eventually she was halted by a pair of peregrine knights in the middle of a ten year watch when they came upon her filthy and hobbling figure.

“Halt Yea,” spoke the first knight, “traveler, the road will devour you before long. Over there is YISUN’s speaking hall.”

“A great gathering is there,” spoke the second knight, “pray ye ask for relief or rest, stranger, from those gathered, for ye shall proceed no longer on our watch.”

Prim gripped her knife but she was too weak to fight. She was afraid to enter that hall because she knew her dreadful appearance would surely offend her father’s peers and invite their wrath down upon her. But, she clutched her iron nail, and the assurance therein sent new strength into her cracked and bleeding feet, and she went on.

YISUN’s speaking house was full of light and sound, its feathered arches were gold and russet from the warmth within. As Prim entered, she saw a great assemblage of lords in attendance, some in their speaking forms, some clothed as great animals or birds, some as a heat or pillar of stone, some great dark roiling clouds, some stretched their limbs through quantum states and others reclined, lotus-like, through probability as they made merriment. A great cry set up when Prim came to the threshold for her feet made black marks upon the gilded tiles and the ash and filth caked upon her form befouled the scented air within, and she was so bent with the weight of her father’s corpse that there were almost none who recognized this torn and broken thing. The gods, forgoing custom, made to cast her out, so foul was her appearance, but Het, who was the doorkeeper, was the keenest among them and did not speak roughly to her. “This is the orphan of Hansa, the poor and broken wanderer who was Prim,” she chastised to the gathered, “shame upon your heart of hearts!” She struck the ground with her stave, and the gods were shamed. Still, they were so repulsed by how ugly Prim had grown that they called only their servants to approach her, who bound her feet again, and served her black bread and spirits, and wrapped her face and ragged shorn head in a binding cloth so the gods may hold her in their sight and set her gently upon the proscenium. Thin wine was brought to clear her throat and fresh and golden cloth was brought for the decaying corpse of Hansa.

“Great masters,” croaked she in her small voice, “where may I bury my father? I have searched and searched, and still he will not be at rest. How may I please him?”

“Annihilate his body with fire and free yourself of his burden,” spat weeping Ashma, but Prim could not, for there was no finer daughter.
“Pass him to me, ” spoke bloated Kaon, “so I may bring him to YISUN’s gardens.” But Prim saw his smile of greed and gripped her great knife.
“Set him walking on the road,” said Pedam, tapping his staff in thought, “so he may never tire of his surroundings.” But Prim had grown to hate the road.

There were more.
“Set him in the deep mountains,” bellowed Yam, the high.
“Give him a crown so he may rule the dead,” said noble Payam.
“Make him a coffin of air, so the emptiness may pass through his bones,” said Ovis, fluctuating between five different time states.
“Give him a silver death mask,” said Kami, who tapped upon her ribcage and fingered her string of heads.
“Feed him to my sons so he may live a new life,” said the God of Pigs.
“Make his body into birds,” said Voya, “small birds, so they may pass easily through holes in the universe.”

There were more, and more besides. Prim could not decide on any of these things, and all they did was rip at her heart relentlessly, and the gods grew restless and discontent. The hour grew late, and with relief, the assembly ushered Prim out of the light and warmth of that hall and onto the cruel and jagged road and freezing morning, and Prim went on.

By degrees, Prim grew more and more bent as the corpse of her father grew bloated and swollen. The cloths on her face and feet became soiled, her great knife bent and chipped, and her beautiful vela grew ragged and torn. All the while, the corpse of her father berated her. “What a horrid excuse for a daughter,” it rasped, “I still lie uninterred! How infantile and unaccomplished! My daughter’s life amounts to less than a flea’s! Better she kill herself than allow this shame to rattle my sorry corpse! She should have died in that iron house with me where she belonged!”

After a while, Prim’s feet were fed to the road and became too swollen with blood to walk, and so she crawled like a guttural beast, and all she passed on the road gave her a wide berth and were horror stricken by the stench of death which surrounded her.

Eventually, it was too much for Prim, and she could go no further. Following her father’s last instruction, for there was no finer daughter, she set her feverish mind to one thing – dying in that iron house as her father commanded. With claw like hands, she wrenched that iron nail from her cloak and with all her strength, pounded it into the rough earth of the road. In a flash and with a terrible groan, all around her grew the terrible jagged eaves and beams, the arches and hollows of the iron house of nails. It was just as she had remembered it, even the dinner she had been preparing before the destruction of her father’s estate. Crawling, she unburdened her cargo and dragged her father’s corpse onto his throne, and prepared to expire.

But suddenly, in that moment, a most undaughterly sentiment came over Hansa Primpiyat. She saw eternity stretching before her, a servile eternity, a comfortable, familiar, and putrid eternity, her rotting corpse serving the ruin of her father in that awful, devouring iron house in perfect, decaying, daughterly obedience, forever and ever. And she felt true fear.

She crawled out of that house as soon as her bloody limbs would take her, with terrifying clarity, and hauled herself over its cold black threshold and away from the grip of eternity. But as soon as she did, there was a sound like the closing of a great tomb, or the dropping of a great stone, or the ringing of a deep bell, and a rush and a clap and there was no sign of that iron house any more in all the cosmos. Suddenly, Prim felt the awful stab of ten times the fear she had before, for all she had ever known and cared about was gone forever with that house, and all that remained was that pitiless and hungry stranger called the road, her new master, crueler and more relentless even than her father, and she curled in a sodden ball and cried an awful keening wail that split the heavens and reached even the archons on their flensing tree. Great filthy tears poured from her eyes and nose and her belly was wrenched with terrible spasms of pain and grief.

A pale face came before her and she was abruptly struck from her despair as though by a great hammer. A beautiful stranger had appeared, mild and tall, of milky flesh, spare in figure, but radiant in voice and visage. “I know you,” said the stranger in a small voice, “you are Prim.”

“I was Hansa’s orphan, the slave, Prim,” croaked Prim in response, “and now I am nobody, just a small dirty thing in great emptiness and here I will die.”

“No,” said the stranger, and the clarity and firmness of her voice and smile send a shock through Prim, “you are Prim, and Prim only, and Prim you shall be.” And Prim there realized her tears had made a great pool and she was greeting her own reflection. And she fell into that murky pool and straight away it turned clear as crystal and Prim vomited forth a great black knot from very deep within her, and her body was scoured and lashed by the icy waters of that pool, and great draughts of poisonous filth and despondency were drawn in rushing gasps from her wounds, and her skin was sealed and her soiled trappings were purged and the caked illness and death was ripped away and she rose from that pool fresh and humming. Her back straightened and she scarcely thought on her father’s corpse or the faintest echo of that iron house. The air was quite pleasant and the road which had seemed cruel now seemed to whimper and bend before her, and she stood up and laughed a perfect laugh of dominance, and its sound rang like a bell as the warmth of life steamed within her, and the road stretched on and it was good.

That is how Prim left her father’s house.

Het and the Rakshasa

(Part 1)

In the days when the King’s Road was scarred with the tramping of soldier’s boots and littered with the detritus they left behind, there was Het, who was a watchman. Het was very tall and straight, and she had arms like sinewy boughs. She was very good with a staff but very poor with a straight sword, which drew her constant disapproving looks from the Sergeant, since the staff was a peasant’s weapon, and not befitting a proper executioner of the Old Law.

The Sergeant’s name was Ramys, but that is neither here nor there, for he was a proper Sergeant. He was very calm, and very handsome, and he had a flawless Watchman’s Eye – that’s why he was promoted. Het pined for him piteously but in vain, for it was astounding how completely dry he was of anything that could possibly resemble love. He took his morning tea bitter, he sat rod-straight, and his nails were exceptionally clean. He was an excellent policeman.

Het and the Sergeant traveled together with a third person, who was very uninteresting. He was the Centurion, and he was a blunt instrument that had been hammered into the shape of a person. He had a neck the size of a tree trunk, and about as knotted. He loved his sword, and the shape of his sword, and most of all, he loved to use it. He was masterful at killing with the sword, which made him an exceptionally poor swordsman.

So it was that Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion were summoned to kill a demon, for that was the job of watchmen in those days. The demon was a Rakshasa, which was a special kind that crawled down a person’s throat or nostrils when he was sleeping and filled him up with bile. Since it wore a person about it like a skin, it was exceptionally hard to find and root out. It fed on blood, stole milk, and abhorred the sound of lying. This was known to Het, who was studious, and the Sergeant, who was very intelligent, but not the Centurion, who cared only about swords.

The Road was on fire with war most of those days, so their travel was exceptionally slow, and the Sergeant kept them to the back paths. It was no place for men of the Law, for the Law had abandoned heaven. So it was a full six turns before Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion reached their destination.

When they arrived, they saw at once that the Rakshasa had been exceptionally cunning. For this was a land of mires and muck, a low, sulfurous land where people eked out their living in filth. So covered head to toe were they that everyone looked almost exactly alike. Passing her gaze from person to person, Het could scarcely tell the young from the old, the man from the woman, or anyone at all, and she shivered, for she was exceptionally clean, as all watchmen were. Watchmen were men of class and stature in those days. They wore shiny boots and spotless uniforms with gleaming buttons.

They were met by the lord of that place, who lived in a palace built on a promontory rising out of the muck (the only promontory around, in fact). The lord was exceptionally beautiful, and had perfect nails, just like the Sergeant. He was borne aloft by four servants who sweated and heaved his palanquin far above the filth below, even though they themselves were often buried up to the waste. It was necessary, in those days.

The lord expounded to them at length about the trouble he was in. “Oh please,” he said, fanning himself with great consternation, “Do something about this filthy Rakshasa! Why, just the other day, it broke into the palace and left a terrible mess. A flock of my prized doves were all torn apart, and its muddy footprints were everywhere!”

“You’ve not to worry,” said the Sergeant, with the utmost confidence, “I rarely fail in my quest to root out evil. We’ll smash your Rakshasa within the week, in the name of the Old Law and the fourth name of God.” Het could attest to the Sergeant’s efficiency, and gave her firm affirmation.

The Sergeant, indeed, seemed to have a terrifyingly strong sense for evil, a pre-natural ability to sniff out even the tiniest bit of it’s stench clinging to a person. This was his Watchman’s Eye. It was a fine instrument of justice, and a great source of admiration for Het, who still thought herself a rough-spun peasant girl in braids. In fact, she was a head taller than the Sergeant, and twice as brawny, but that’s a tale for later. For now, she saw the Sergeant’s perfect fingernails, and his handsome mustaches, and his dramatic brow, and felt a strong swell of pride and longing.

The lord was very happy. He promised to give them proper accommodations at his high palace and a bath everyday to clean them from the muck of the land and keep them in proper watchmen shape, as long as they returned by the time the gates closed.

And so it was that Het, and the Sergeant, and the Centurion set about the land on the first day, looking for the Rakshasa.

Het and the Rakshasa

(Part 2)

The land was very foreign to Het and she held her stave tightly to her as they wandered about the mires that passed for streets in that place. People slept on the street, or with animals, to her great shock. The buildings were low and hunched, and covered in the muck of the earth, and in that respect, they were just like the people. Here and there she could peer into their smoky interiors and see a woman bent and crooked over a fire, a man picking through junk, a youth carrying a lashed and heavy bundle over her back. But that was about as much as Het could tell apart, for the muck that covered them made them all look alike. Their eyes were white and hungry and Het shivered as she passed the listless clusters of them lining the street.

The day passed and the sergeant asked many fine questions, as his perfect fingernails tapped the polished hilt of his straight sword. Het and the Centurion followed him to and fro, from dwelling to dwelling. The Sergeant would knock, and bend his handsome head just a little inside. He would step once, twice, great policeman’s strides, and in his polite way, inquire about the terrible happenings in the community. Het was very impressed, for the dwellers were sullen and hard to read with their faces covered in muck. They spoke very little and Het was sure they were hiding some dark secret away.

The Sergeant, however, was nonplussed. “I am piecing together little by little the location of our monster,” he said to Het and the Centurion. His back was very straight, and he was utterly confident. Het saw that his Watchman’s Eye was working very well indeed, and longed to know its secrets.

The day grew very late and Het was very anxious to get back to the Palace and her bath, for the eyes of the populace followed their party like hungry beads, and the muck had piled up around her shiny boots. But as they drew up in front of the last low and sloping dwelling, the Sergeant gave them a knowing look. As he knocked, there was a tremendous noise as a man stumbled out of a side alley in a dead run. The sergeant gave out a cry, and before Het could even ready her stave, the Centurion had closed thirty paces and struck the man down with a single horrifying blow.

The Centurion was extremely happy, but Het was not, for as she drew closer, she saw among the man’s scattered entrails there was scarcely a demon to be found. In his outstretched hand was a purse of silver coins. “He shouldn’t have run,” said the Sergeant sadly, and wiped his brow, “A common thief, no more.” Het felt repulsed and regretful, for the punishment for thievery was not death. But then the Sergeant noted the hour, and Het thought of the palace and her bath, and they returned at speed.

The Sergeant’s confidence was hardly dented at all. “The poor sap was just a criminal, not a demon as I suspected! The information was very poor, but I’ll keep at it,” he said. “The people of this land are sullen and poorly spoken, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve our protection!” The lord of the land agreed. They had a pheasant dinner and a fine bath, and slept well. Het, however, could scarcely sleep and spent her night staring out at the muck below.

In the morning came tales of dead livestock and stolen milk. This made the Sergeant more resolute, and gave Het hope as they set about the town. The Centurion followed along eagerly. He had cleaned his sword.

This time, a strange familiarity came over Het. Having seen the town and its inhabitants before, passing through a second time her curiosity got the better of her. As they passed through the bent and filthy streets, she peered once again into their cramped interiors. Here again was the woman bent over a fire. But Het saw that the fire was a kind of kiln or oven, and the woman had a long stick she was stoking it with. Here again, was the man bent over junk, but here and there Het saw glimmers. And here again, was the youth bent low by her heavy load, but Het saw all of a sudden that her load was a cloth of interesting texture.

The Sergeant once again passed from dwelling to dwelling, relentless. “I am very sure this time,” said the Sergeant, “For these leads have the stench of evil about them. Where dwelleth evil, dwelleth demons, don’t you think?”

Once again, as the hour was growing late, the Sergeant’s inquiries drew them close to a dwelling by a choked and polluted river. And as soon as the Sergeant rapped on the door, a woman scrambled out the window and dove into the river. Once again, the Sergeant cried out, and once again, the Centurion sprang eagerly forth. He leapt into the water and speared the woman through the belly like a fish. She spent a long time dying as the Centurion cleaned his sword.

She didn’t have a Rakshasa inside her, just the rotted teeth of a long time Glass addict. The Sergeant wiped his brow. “She shouldn’t have run,” he said, his eyes sad. Het was despondent, for the punishment for using Glass was not death. She was glad that they were rooting out evil in this land, no matter how small, but it still weighed heavily on her as they trudged through the mud back to the palace and their bath.

The Lord was very happy with their progress, even if they hadn’t caught the Rakshasa, and Het lost no confidence in the Sergeant’s Watchman’s Eye, for it had indeed detected evil, even though the dwellers of that land were uncooperative. But a bath could not clear her mind, nor could clean clothes. Once again, she spent her night staring at the muck below. And this time, a strange impulse struck her. She donned her uniform, put on her shiny boots, and clambered out the window.

Het and the Rakshasa

(Part 3)

Resolute that she could find some new information for the Sergeant (and perhaps impress him), Het struggled down the muddy slope into the land below. And when she arrived there, she saw a strange and terrifying sight indeed.

In the square there was a great gathering of the dwellers of that land. A long and warped table had been laid out, and all the dwellers were all gathered around a terrible fire, which threw ghastly light upon their dark and white-eyed faces. Het saw there the fire-stoking woman, and the junk-sifting man, and the bundle-bearing youth. The entire gathering was giving forth an unearthly wail, their hands outstretched in claw like shapes, their faces upturned and monstrous. A great lightning bolt of fear struck Het about the heart and she fled at once back to the palace.

In the morning, she told the Sergeant of what she had seen, and he congratulated her for her find, and promised to redouble his investigation given the new evidence of wrongdoing. So it was that even though Het’s boots and uniform were already muddy from the night before, that morning she set out warm with pride and her chin thrust in the air, the Centurion ahead of her with his sword hand flexing.

Het’s discovery seemed to invigorate the Sergeant. He set about questioning the dwellers at twice the speed he had before, and very shortly they had a suspect, who the Centurion cut down with incredible speed before they could even ask him a question. He did not have a Rakshasa inside him, but, in fact, turned out to be simply a bad debtor. So it was with the next person the Centurion slaughtered, a woman who turned out to be a forger of the king’s coin. “We’ll have a very busy day,” said the Sergeant, cleaning his perfect fingernails.

Het was roiling with frustration and guilt. How could they have been so misled? Petty criminals were not what they had come for. Surely the dwellers of this land had some awful secret they were hiding away, especially given the dark gathering Het had stumbled on the night before. Perhaps there was an entire clan of Rakshasa, scheming away at their demise. The mud-daubed faces of the hunched and twisted people around Het looked more similar than ever. They seemed to be laughing at her.

With great intent, Het excused herself from the Sergeant and Centurion, and rushed to the hut of the fire-stoking woman, knocking her door open with the butt of her stave. “You there!” said Het accusingly, “What are you doing?”

“I am making bread,” said the astonished woman, “For this land is harsh and scarce, but it gives to us all the same. It’s what we have.” Het was suspicious and took three fine steps into the room, in the way she’d seen the Sergeant step. But the woman showed her the oven, and the way it was stoked, and the thin and flimsy looking bread that she was baking there. And since Het could find no fault with baking bread, she left and ran to the dwelling of the junk-sifting man.

“You there!” she said as she reached his dwelling. She gripped her stave tightly, for she feared trouble. “What is your business?” The junk-sifter turned to her, astonished. “I am preparing amulets, made by the townspeople,” he said. “For this land is harsh and bleak, but its people are resourceful.” Het took two great steps inside the dwelling and saw that he was telling the truth. The amulets weren’t terribly well made, but they had a certain crude beauty to them that was undeniable. Growing increasingly uneasy, Het took up her stave and fled to find the bundle-bearing youth.

It took her very little time, for Het was in a great hurry. A terrible suspicion that she was being deceived had taken hold of her, and she began to walk square shouldered and narrow-eyed, like the Centurion. Her hand even hovered around her sword handle, but never touched it, for she was terrible with the sword.

She accosted the youth, who turned to her wide eyed. “You there!” barked Het, and she took a single step and grasped the youth’s shoulder. “What are you scheming? I know there’s something your people are hiding from me!” The youth gaped at Het and said, “Please! I’m carrying the burial cloths! For this land is harsh and its rulers cruel, but it’s people are resilient.” It was then that Het realized she was crushing the youth’s shoulder and let go. The trembling youth unfurled the cloth, and explained how the cloth was dyed and folded. Het saw it’s intricate pattern, but still her suspicions were not quenched. She shoved the terrified youth aside and ran in a panic to where the Sergeant and the Centurion were executing a root seller who was selling their produce over-price.

“A terrible shame,” said the Sergeant, and wiped his brow.

As Het approached him, she told him of her suspicions. “ A conspiracy is boiling here!” she said, breathless. “I am certain now the dwellers of this land are hiding the Rakshasa!”

“I thought as much,” said the Sergeant, “Which is why I have stepped up our investigations once again.” The Centurion said nothing, but only cleaned the viscera off his sword in well-practiced motions. He had butchered seven dwellers that day and was exceptionally happy for it.

Het told the Sergeant of her plan. She would stay behind and follow the dwellers to their night-time gathering, and get to the heart of the matter. Part of her daring plan, to be certain, was a desperate final bid to win the Sergeant’s affection. But the large part of it was a deathly fear that the demons of this awful, muck-ridden land would surely get the better of them and they would be ripped apart.

“If you stay behind,” said the Sergeant, matter-of-factly, “You shan’t get in the palace in time. You will miss your bath and you’ll be terribly filthy. I would think you’d have to sleep outside.” He looked pointedly at Het’s boots and uniform, doubly soiled with both the filth of that day and of her exploits the night before. Het’s heart sunk, but she was resolute.

So it was that the Sergeant and the Centurion abandoned Het and returned to the palace. Het found a thin and dead tree and huddled under it, filled with fear and trepidation, and even touched her sword handle at some points. The bleak sun grew low in the sky and darkness swept across the land. Het crawled forth from her hiding place, trudging through the muck, until she saw the light of the great fire start up again in the distance. Her heart jumped as she grew closer, as once again she saw the dark forms of the dwellers gather together and lay out their table. But fear had made her feet unsteady, and all of a sudden she slipped and tumbled through the muck until she lay battered in the street, in plain view of the gathering.

Het struggled to her feet, and gathered her staff close to her, and prepared to die. But the white eyes of the dwellers held looks of sadness and compassion, not of hate. “Come closer, stranger,” they said, gathering her in and soothing her. And Het realized that she herself was so covered with filth at this point that she looked no different from anyone else standing around that great fire. Dazed, she was pulled into the gathering, and given water. And there, Het saw the fire-stoking woman. She was laying bread out upon the table, in roughly woven baskets.

Her mind racing, Het looked around, and found the junk-sifting man, and she saw him laying amulets upon the eyes of someone lying on the ground. The person was so still at first, that Het thought they were acting, but then Het saw the bundle-bearing youth wrap them in a burial cloth and realized it was one of the dwellers that the Sergeant and the Centurion had slaughtered earlier that day. That she had slaughtered. And she looked to the fire and saw the bodies burning there, and the wailing started, and there Het began to cry.

After Het had finished weeping, it was as though the tears had cleared her eyes of something dark and terrible. The people, who had looked so alike in their covering of dirt and their rough clothing now stood out stark as day. Here was a kindly woman with a lined face pulled tight in grief for her lost son. Here was a young and sun-worn man beating his chest for his dead sister. They were simple faces, dirty and weather-beaten, but in that moment, sublimely beautiful.

After the fire and its grim contents had burned down to coals, they sat around the great table and ate the thin bread that had been laid out there. As each person bit into it, they bowed their heads and loudly praised its fine taste. Het didn’t touch it at first, but was urged on by the mourners. To her surprise, the bread was bitter and dry. “How can you praise this bread when the taste is so poor?” said Het, astonished. The dwellers looked at her strangely and said, “This land heaps pain and indignity upon us. We are small people, so we must be grateful for the small things. Otherwise, what do we have?”

Het was sickened by her own blindness. “In truth,” she said, “I am a watchman come to town to hunt for the Rakshasa.”

“We know,” said the dwellers. “The Rakshasa has plagued us for some time. It steals what little livelihood we have and inflicts pain and malice upon us. At first, our funerals were only for those that it took in the night. Now we must work twice as hard to mourn those the Law takes as well. We resent it, but what can we do? It is the way of things.”

Het thought of the Sergeant and his perfect fingernails, and felt a sudden and strong revulsion. “It is not the way of things,” she said. An idea struck her then, as pure and clear as a bolt of lightning.

“Do all attend these gatherings?” she asked the dwellers. “No,” said the dwellers, “there are some who stay silent in their grief, or resent our mourning.” Het thought a moment, then planted her staff and stood up. “I will find this Rakshasa for you,” she said, speaking to those assembled. “Are there dead that are not yet burned?” The dwellers showed her that there were, and Het bade them delay their final rites. There was a great clamor among the dwellers, but Het planted her staff again, and they listened, partly in fear, and partly in awe.

“The Sergeant will start his investigation again tomorrow,” said Het in a voice she didn’t knew she had yet. “You will burn your dead when the sun is high, instead of at night, and you will bid all the town come to the funeral. Those that are not at the gathering will surely be in danger, for the Sergeant has promised me he will step up his investigation. You will bake the bread, and make the amulets, and prepare the burial cloth, just as normal, and in turn, I will reveal to you a secret way to draw out and kill the Rakshasa.”

The dwellers were in turmoil at Het’s suggestion, for it was a grave breach of custom. But the Rakshasa had plagued them for a long time, and the suggestion of relief from its scourge was just enough to motivate them. They set about finishing their funeral rites, and preparing for the next day. Het, for her part, trudged in the cold and dark back to the palace. But, as promised, the palace gates were closed to her. She slept in the mud and awoke cold and wet, but full of purpose.

Het and the Rakshasa

(Part 4)

When the Sergeant and Centurion strode through the palace gates that morning clean and shiny, they reacted with a start when Het rose to greet them, for she was so covered in mud that she appeared just like the dwellers. But the Sergeant recognized her stave and questioned her at once about her inexcusable appearance.

“Delay your investigation” pleaded Het, “For we have treated these people with nothing but brutality and cruelty! Out of your love for the Law, please let the Centurion sheathe his sword today!” The Sergeant denied her of course, for there was not one ounce of anything resembling love in his whole body. As he denied her, Het found her longing for the Sergeant slip out of her like a cold liquid, and she felt deeply saddened, for it confirmed what she had known all along. But it was an expected loss, and resolution quickly filled its place.

The Sergeant immediately began his investigation, rapping on doors and even windows with his perfect fingernails The buttons of his uniform suddenly seemed too bright and sharp to Het, and the glint from them hurt her eyes. She heard the sweaty palm of the Centurion rubbing over his sword hilt.

But true to their word, the dwellers had gathered absolutely everyone to the central square for the delayed funeral rites, and there was nary a soul to be found in any of the humble and stooped dwellings of that land. For once, Het saw the Sergeant taken aback. “Well this is awfully strange,” he said to Het with a cold look in his eye, and the Centurion fumed. It was then that the funereal wailing started, and following its sound and the smoke from the fire, the group made their way to the central square.

“Stop this nonsense!” said the Sergeant in his very reasonable policeman’s voice as they strode amongst the gathered masses, but nobody listened. They were filled with grief and resentment at having to delay their funeral rites, and many of them threw spurious glances at Het as they wailed. “Hold a moment,” said Het, and they held as the bread was laid out. “A little longer,” said Het as the amulets were laid on the eyes of the dead. “Just a little longer,” said Het, as the cloth was wrapped around the bodies. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the Centurion’s expert sword arm was bulging with unreleased tension, and the cords of his neck were thick and red. But at the moment Het was sure he would spring forth, foaming at the mouth, the funeral was over, and the breaking of the bread began. It was then that Het jumped into action.

“May I have some bread?” she asked the fire-stoking woman, and was handed a thin and meager piece. She swallowed it down as the Sergeant watched, cold and irate, and then pulled herself up to her full height and planted her staff. In fact, Het was very tall, and her arms were corded like boughs, and her staff was so heavy that a rough man of the fields who worked a plough all day would scarcely be able to lift it. Even though she knew none of these things, everyone else recognized them very quickly, and so it grew very quiet indeed when she stood up.

“This bread is the finest I’ve had in my three years of service,” she proclaimed, loudly and precisely. “Why, I’d deign to say it’s better than the bread my grandmother baked.” The assembled dwellers nodded in approval, even though they knew the bread was bitter and dry. The land may have been cold and harsh, but they were gracious for what they had. “How is your bread, auntie?” Het asked the fire-stoking woman. The woman caught the glint in Het’s eye, and all of a sudden a wave of understanding and excitement passed around the gathered dwellers. “I’d deign to say it’s the best bread I’ve baked yet,” said the woman at the top of her voice, “The best bread in a century!” There was a loud chorus of approval, and other voices joined in.

“The best bread on this side of the Wheel!”

“See how sweet and fresh it is!”

“They should serve it in the capital!”

More and more voices joined in until it was a cacophony of praise. Ridiculous, overfed, hyperbolic lies tumbled back and forth through the air, and Het stood at the center of it all, with her eye bright and sharp, and both hands on her quarterstaff. She was beginning to lose hope, when there was suddenly a shrill and piercing scream.

The scream came from an old and shriveled woman, who was bent double over the great table, and bile was pouring from her mouth and nose. For, as they all remembered then, the Rakshasa could not stand the sound of lies, and it crawled right out of the woman’s mouth and writhed in a black and suppurating mass on the table. “Enough!” It shrieked, but Het scarcely gave it pause before she dashed forth and smashed its skull into five hundred pieces with a mighty blow of her quarterstaff. The blow was so powerful it split the table clean in two and send echoes all the way up to the palace where it shattered the lord’s prized crystal chandelier with the mere sound of its violence.

A great cheer went up and the broken body of the Rakshasa was beaten and bludgeoned by the furious crowd and dragged into the muck where it was later eaten by dogs. The old woman was brought immediately to the dwelling of a healer where she recovered through the healer’s strong skill in herbal cleansing and lived another decade, demon free.

But it wasn’t over for Het, by far. If anything, she gripped her quarterstaff even tighter, for while the crowd had been filling the air with lies, she had noticed something bizarre that filled her up to the brim with dread. The Sergeant had been trembling and quaking the entire time, just like the old woman, and his handsome face was lined with pain.

And Het turned to him in fear and said, “You too, have a Rakshasa inside of you.”

“Of course,” choked the Sergeant, “It takes a demon to find a demon, didn’t you know? That’s why they made me a Sergeant.”

“You don’t have a Watchman’s Eye at all,” said Het, choking back tears, “You just know whether someone is lying or not.”

“Yes,” said the convulsing Sergeant, bile pouring from his nose and ruining his perfect mustache. “I am very good at catching liars and criminals. If you want to fraternize with the filthy, that is your business. I, however, am a perfect policeman.” Het had to admit, he was right. He was a very good policeman, with very clean fingernails. But he was a very poor person.

“Liars and criminals are not the same,” said Het, and struck the Sergeant a mighty blow across the chest. At that, the Centurion, who had been waiting to kill someone all morning, sprung forth with a lustful, sputtering cry and drew his sword. But although he far outmatched Het at skill with the sword, he was a very poor swordsman. He got a few good cuts in on Het, which she bore for the rest of her life, but she was filled with the terrible fires of Will, and he was not. The moment she got a good blow on his over-swollen sword hand, it was over. He whined like a dog as Het gave him a thorough beating.

“Kill me,” he begged, broken and bleeding, and cried piteously. It was the only thing he ever said to Het.

Het looked him over in pity, unbuckled her sword belt, and then threw it in the muck, for it was a killing weapon, unlike the stave. In this respect, Het was a very good swordswoman. She left the Centurion weeping and bade the dwellers teach him a more useful skill than killing. It was said he became a middling carpenter, but that’s a story for another time.

Het turned back to the Sergeant. He had coughed his Rakshasa out into the dirt, and it was dragging itself feebly away from a ring of furious dwellers, who were harassing it with sticks and stones. The sight of it disgusted Het, for it was a greatly fattened and pampered thing. She bashed its brains out with very little thought and hurled its body into a sucking mire. When she returned, the Sergeant was bent over, quivering and cold. Without the demon inside of him, he was a small man, thin and sickly looking. Het was suddenly aware how much taller she was than him.

“You fool,” babbled the Sergeant, “What will I do now? How will I make my living? How will I afford the money to keep my boots shined and my nails clean?” Het looked at him, all clean-pressed and sharp, his eyes feverish and hateful, and over to the funeral pyre, which was burnt nearly to ashes, and the sorrowful gazes of the dwellers who bent there. Truly, she thought, she would waste very little time on this small and cruel man, so she walked away.

“Thank you for slaying the Rakshasa,” said the dwellers, and went back to their harsh existence. They were gracious for it, nonetheless. Het shed her uniform and her boots and spent the last of her pay buying a good traveling cloak, a set of rough-spun clothing, and iron-nailed boots.

“Where will you go?” asked the fire-stoking woman. “To the Road, of course,” said Het, for that was the nature of things. Het abhorred violence. But there were Rakshasas about, and worse. Indeed, though her stave was used for cracking skulls very rarely, the skulls it cracked were very famous indeed. You may have heard of a few, and perhaps also how she came to be the doorkeeper of YISUN’s speaking house, and how she met Prim again on the road some time later. But those are stories for another time.

Before she left, Het offered her old clothing to the dwellers, who declined. “Your boots are very impractical for walking in the mud,” they said, and Het had to agree. If you had to wash all the stains out every night, stains ceased to have meaning.

It didn’t stop Het from taking a bath later, however. Some habits die hard.

Het and the Three Companions

Part 1

There came a time when the dust of the road grew too thick for Het, and her great stave grew heavy, and the days grew dead and cold. She lifted her brow to the horizon, and spying the faint light of shelter, set her shoulder to the wind and drove on. It was not long before she came upon a cramped and hardy town, set into the earth as though frozen there. The roads were well used, and smoke and steam coiled from hot chimneys, but although the light had not yet died, there was not a soul about, only a few spare and desperate looking dogs. This troubled Het, being a former watchman, but she pressed on, for travel by then had worn her so thin that she feared to trust the strength of her arm.

It wasn’t long before Het came upon a narrow and weather-stained hall, and there a door with iron nails in it. As she entered, something caught her eye. Over the threshold was an old sprig of holly and and a writ of forbiddance against the things that preyed on men, the paper fresh and crisp. Inside the hall a long hearth tried fitfully to push back against the chill that seeped in through the cracked walls. There gathered on the straw were some dozen locals, their faces haggard and creased, and sitting some ways off were three others, who stood out by their color – for the rest of the place was dull and smothered with gloom. The first was a man with a crimson cloak, a beggar knight with a knotted beard and bulging eyeballs. The second was a priest in a stained white vestment, chewing on sweetroot and spitting the juice into the straw. The third was a golden-haired woman with milky skin and burnished armor. She had on her a great number of weapons, all polished to a sheen, and many emblems were fastened to her breastplate, which was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling beast.

Het thought it a strange scene, but stranger still was the cold and hollow silence in that place, broken only by the shuffling of feet, the light tap of utensils, and the occasional sound of the priest spitting into the straw. “Ho friends,” said Het, feeling as if she was breaking glass with her very words, “May I sit by this hearth? The nights grow long and the path is hard and stony.” There was no response, so Het took a second step into the room, and saw at once the grey and downturned faces, the hollow and reddened eyes, and the empty expressions of those seated there. Het saw that the hall, narrow that it was, was built for far more to supper there, and she was suddenly aware of the great emptiness in that room.

“Death has made her abode here,” said Het.

“So she has,” said the red-cloaked beggar knight, and bade Het come share bread.

Het sat down amongst the three strangers. The bread had been broken some time ago, and was stiff and dense. Het chewed it and tried to warm herself, but her cloak was thin, and the the hearth barely touched the room with its heat. “Where is the waymaster?” asked Het. “Dead,” said the priest with the stained robes, and spat into the straw, “And you won’t get much out of anyone here about it. Not a soul in this town dares breathe a word, or lets their boots protrude an inch outside more than they have to. All industry and life in this town fled long ago. It’s as dead as the poor waymaster.”

“How so?” said Het.

“They are paralyzed with fear. There’s a demon about,” said the priest, through his mouthful of root. “It goes about pick-a-pack and kills what it pleases, be it man, woman, or child. So I hear it, at first it began taking a little – mutilating livestock and the like. Then before long it got a taste for man flesh. It hasn’t killed when the sun is high yet, so folks have figured that’s the only way to stay safe.” The priest picked at a scar on his nose and continued. “Trouble is, it seems lately it hasn’t been following the rules. It’s lifting latches and throwing catches and crawling in through windows and spilling the guts of folks in their sleep. So they all figure the quieter they are, the less likely they are to lose their innards.”

“Makes for poor hospitality,” wheezed the beggar knight, and took a long drink from an iron flask at his hip. The golden-haired maiden simply looked on, her expression bitter. Het found the pale woman’s silence troubling. Her massive hands searched for the grip of her great stave, for she was familiar with demons, and had spent a great deal of her days on the road driving them out of the places she passed through. Here, near the edges of the world, they clustered on the hamlets spotted across the bleak landscape and fattened themselves like ticks. “Well, hasn’t anyone thought of killing it?” said Het.

“Didn’t you see the tree on the way in?” said the beggar knight. Het shook her head, as she had no idea what he was talking about. The three other travelers passed a look between them.

“Well come have a look,” said the priest. He heaved to his feet and spat his sweet root out, and grabbed his preaching rod and an old iron lantern, which he lit with a foul-smelling oil. Het followed him as he limped out the door. Strangely, he paused on the threshold, foot planted as though waiting for something. Het was about to ask why, but caught the sheen of sweat on the man’s ruddy neck, and the slight shake in his hand, and realized the priest was afraid. She held her tongue as the beggar knight, and then the golden-haired woman, gathered up their armament, then rose and followed them into the biting dusk. The light had almost wicked away to nothing. The streets they passed through were hollow, and even the dogs had disappeared. Their footsteps echoed off the walls of that barren place, and through the freezing air Het could sense the invisible and terrible grip of fear.

Het and the Three Companions

Part 2

They arrived after a short while at a low hollow in the earth, what might have once been called a town square. In the middle, the broken and knotted form of an ancient tree jutted forth from the ground. In times of plenty, Het could have seen it bear a thick crown of leaves, or perhaps colorful blossoms. At a time it may have been majestic, a sentinel watching over the town. But Het realized now she had been lucky to avoid its sight when the light was better. For as she drew closer to the tree, and the quavering light of the priest’s lantern picked up the jagged tangle of its branches, she could see that they were smeared with a strange, crusted sap. Here and there, the sap had dripped to the ground in smears and blotches, creating a strange patchwork among the gnarled roots. And as the party drew right up to those roots, Het saw that there were tattered cloths hanging from the tree, like discarded laundry, hanging here and there as though carried in by a gale of some sort. Hundreds of them hung there, limp and lifeless in the frosty dusk.

But it was not sap. And they were not cloths.

They stood there a while. Het was not sure what to say. Her breathe had quickened and she thought she might swallow her tongue a moment. She waited until the beating of her heart had subsided, and let the cold fingers of fear retreat from under her skin. “Nobody dares take em’ down,” said the priest finally. The whites of his eyes were very bright, even in the dusk. “Some tried, and were added to the rest. Seems a few would-be-heroes came through town, and thought to go after the beast.” He raised the lantern higher, with slow and deliberate movements. “There’s many up there.”

“Ten,” said the beggar knight. He licked his lips, his bulging eyes flicking back and forth among the branches and their grisly banners. “I see em’ up there. It hung their cloaks and banners next to them.”

“Why does it flay them?” said Het.

“Who knows,” said the priest, “God didn’t give demons a reason for killing. They don’t even need to eat.”

“We shouldn’t be about, now,” said the beggar knight, his eyes wide and darting, his voice barely a croak. The tiny circle of lamplight surrounding them seemed to be dimming, and the hollow spaces between the buildings surrounding the square seemed to swell, filling with a thick and pregnant blackness. The silence was suddenly completely deafening. Het felt as though she herself was missing her skin, and all the eyes in the world were burrowing into her flesh, hard enough to draw blood.

But at last, a voice like a firebrand cut through the silence. “I’m not afraid of any demon,” said the golden haired woman. Her radiant white face seemed to rise up in the lamplight, and Het suddenly relaxed her painful grip on her stave, and her breath grew calm as the cold sweat on the back of her neck evaporated. Had she been that afraid? “I’ve been trying to convince these clods for hours,” said the woman, motioning with her chin at the priest and the beggar knight. “We should go about when the sun is up and slay the beast in it’s lair.”

“You’re as afraid as we are,” protested the beggar knight, his thick beard bobbing as he spoke.

“Nay, friends,” said the woman, “I am never daunted. I will go after it myself if I must.” There was a ring of steel, and she drew a heavy, gleaming blade from her collection. “I had hoped to go while the light was about, but if I must, I’ll head it off now and we can get this whole business over with. If any man join me and cannot banish the measly scourge of fear from his heart, he is of no use to me.”

“Wait!” said Het, not wanting the woman to leave, for if she did, Het knew her fear would surely return. Looking about, she saw the same hunger in the faces of the beggar and the priest, and she knew instantly that the same terror had them in its grip.

“Do you doubt me?” said the shining woman. “I’ve dueled with soldiers of the corpse-legion and won. I’ve killed giants with naught but a broken axe,” said the woman,” and I’ve hacked off the heads of fiends and crawling things from one end of this blasted world to the next.” Het saw that this was true, for the woman’s gleaming breastplate was flush with colorful emblems, and she had a great number of pale and puckered scars crowding her beautiful face. Het saw the confidence with which the woman held the handle of her blade, and the steadiness of her polished boot, and the beautiful line of her strong and confident brow, and knew then that there was not an ounce of fear inside the woman.

“Now join me or quake by the hearth some more,” growled the woman, and made to leave. But the priest put a hand on her shoulder, and in the other raised his lantern high. “I shall join you,” said the priest, “For God spake and said to cast out demons wherever they are found, and forbade us to feel fear while doing our holy work. I may be of some use to you.” But as he spoke, Het saw his quivering hand, and his shaky gait, and his white eyes that were constantly darting up to the tree and its grisly adornment.

“Nay” said the golden-haired warrior, who had seen it too. “Fear has his grip on you, and you’re of no use to me”

“I feel something like fear,” said the priest, “But I cannot be afraid, for God has taught us fear is naught but an illusion. I deny my fear, and in doing so, conquer it” He set his pale face, shiny with sweat, in a resolute expression, and from his habit produced his preaching rod, which he clutched in a strained grip. The golden-haired woman gave him a discerning look, but at last waved him forward. “Very well,” she said, “Stand by me here, and hold the lantern,” she said, and made to leave.

They had scarcely walked two paces when there was a cry. “Wait!” said the beggar knight, “I think I told you I was afraid, but I am sure now I wasn’t. My drink is clouding my mind.” From within his cloak he produced his flask and took a long swig as if to prove a point. Then he produced a stout wooden cudgel for beating away dogs, as was the custom.

“Is that so?” said the golden-haired woman. Her eyes were mistrustful. “I must plead for my food,” said the beggar. He tugged on his beard as he spoke, and Het saw he was shaking almost as badly as the priest. “From dawn to dusk I am looked down upon by even the lowliest of men who pass me. Some think I’m no better than an animal! If all of you think less of me because I am afraid, then I will endeavor not to be!” He puffed up his chest, and thumped his cudgel against the cobbles.

“Very well,” said the golden haired woman, finally. “You may stand behind the priest and steady his hand, for I’ll need consistent lamp-light if I’m to do my grisly work.” She hefted her heavy blade, and the three of them turned to leave, but then Het cried out, for she could feel fear returning as fast as the lamp-light faded. “Not you too, surely?” said the golden-haired woman. “Dare you tell me you are not afraid as well?”

Het looked around at the darkness, and turned her eyes away from the tree, for it was too terrible. She planted her stave, and leaned into it. It had served her well in defending the weak and poor. She had smashed the skulls of many terrible things with its thick end, and she had faced down death many times. Het knew that she was regarded as brave by many people. She was confident in the strength of her arm, and the skill of her swing, and the power of her watchman’s eye to catch out and destroy evil. But at all that time, even when swinging the mighty bulk of her stave into the jaws of death, she could never once say that she hadn’t been afraid. Fear had been her constant companion, as much as she would have liked to have banished it. She could not be like this shining and decorated warrior before her, golden-locked and striding into the darkness with confidence and poise.

“I am afraid,” said Het. “I’m very afraid. Even though I’ve spend the last odd year of my life hunting demons, there’s been a shiver in my grip the whole time.” She felt ashamed. But it was better to tell the truth and bear it on her back. It was what a good watchman was supposed to do, if Het had still been a watchman. In truth, Het was a better watchman then than she ever had been when she wielded a badge and uniform. In truth, Het had slain thrice as many demons as the golden-haired woman. Het was, in fact, a head and a half taller than any of the other three travelers. Her arms were like oak boughs, and none save her could have dreamed of lifting her heavy stave. But she knew none of this, and so she felt ashamed.

“Well then you’re of no use to me,” scowled the golden-haired woman, “But there’s no use either sending you back to the hall to cower. Stand a ways behind the beggar, and hold on to the tail of his cloak. Now let’s be off!” So the golden-haired woman gripped the rugged haft of her blade and set her jaw and stormed off into the night. And behind her, the priest raised his lantern, and behind him, the beggar followed with his cudgel. And at the very rear was Het, who clung on to the tail of the beggar’s cloak, and brought her stave close to her chest, and hung her head low. Her one reprieve was that the heavy and matted locks of her hair, which had grown long and dense during her time on the road, hung like a curtain and hid her shame from the others.

They made a strange party as they crept through those empty streets. First, the golden-haired woman came, with her profusion of weapons, and her steely gaze and confident stride. Each time she stepped, her boots slapped the cobbles with such a profound sound that Het almost jumped. Then came the priest, with his lantern held high. The tremble of his hand made the light waver and swing violently. Profuse shadows would grow and clutch from the hollows and recesses of the crooked buildings around them until the beggar reached out and steadied the lantern with his callused hand. There was no sound except for the slapping of the golden-haired warrior’s boots, and their breath, which by degrees became louder and louder to Het, until it was almost deafening.

It quickly grew so dark that to Het it seemed they stood in the void itself, and nothing else existed in either shape or sound beyond the swinging circle of lamp-light they carried with them. The cold dug under Het’s meager wrappings, and sent nails under her skin. Her knuckles cracked and bled, so tight was her grip upon her great stave and the ragged cloak of the beggar. An hour or more passed, and the truth of that place began to unfold itself in frozen vistas of emptiness. The world was black and total, a place that mocked light, sensation, and the meager heat inside them that they bled out into the uncaring night. Occasionally the golden haired woman would stop and stoop, and they would wait in silence while she examined the earth, or where a low wall of stones had been broken, or where a window shutter had been torn off its hinges. At these times, Het would lash down her breath and release it in a sudden burst when they moved again.

It wasn’t long before the priest’s lantern threw its light on a a terrible scene. The dwellings surrounding them were ransacked and empty, their windows hollow. Their doors were splintered or torn, the contents of their interior vomited into the street. Broken furniture and trash were piled almost wall to wall, so that as they proceeded, they picked their way over the mud spattered detritus of vacated lives. Finally, the golden-haired warrior raised a gauntleted hand and bade them stop. There was no sound at all as they came to a low and hunched building that stood aside from the others. The ground was torn and mangled here, and pressed into it like strange cobblestones were the strange and precious oddments of every day life- a tea set, a shoe, a child’s doll, a crumpled wrapping cloth, an antique plate. There was a single door in the building, and over the door frame, a ward against evil. It had burned up and curled into a black and barely recognizable mess.

Over the eaves of that building, hanging like dull banners, were dried and tattered skins. The door was swinging on its hinges.

“The beast dwells here,” said the golden-haired woman in low voice, and motioned to the building. And as the last of her exhalation left her lips, from the open doorway something terrible and massive poured, and unfolded all its awful limbs and hurtled towards them, screaming.

Het and the Three Companions

Part 3

The golden-haired woman had no fear in her heart at all, and so her feet were quick and true. Bellowing a mighty cry she raised her gleaming blade to strike. But since she had no fear in her, her blow was rash and prideful and full of none of the self-preserving wisdom of longer-lived warriors. The beast was a twisted and hateful thing, and it took the blade upon its flesh and hacked up bloody spittle as the cold metal dug deep into its shoulder. But there the blade lodged, and as the golden-haired warrior struggled to pull a new weapon from her collection, the beast shrieked and lifted her into the air with unholy strength, and cracked her rib cage and sucked her guts out in a second, and that was that.

The priest gave out a cry, and swung his lantern at the demon, for dogma had taught him that such creatures hated light above all things. And indeed, dogma had taught well, for the beast spat a frothy spittle and recoiled from the lantern, and the priest struck out with his preaching rod, as he was taught to do. But while confidence guided the priest’s blow, it was an illusory confidence, driven by his refusal to accept fear. The shaking of his limbs that he had so long ignored turned his blow, and it struck wide. The sweat of his palms greased his grip and his weapon flew from his hand. He tried to utter a prayer, but found to his surprise he could not speak a single word. He cried out as his head was split and devoured, and his lantern was knocked aside and snuffed, and that was that.

With the other two dead, and having little regard for Het, the beggar had absolutely no reason to continue to appear brave, and ran shrieking into the pitch black, where he was set upon and torn apart as he tried to scrabble over a low wall. And that was that, and only Het remained, quaking with terror, unable to see beyond her nose, and clutching a torn shred of the beggar’s cloak.

The demon ceased its screaming, and prowled in circles as it licked its gory chops, for Het was surely easy prey. Het could scarcely control the shaking of her limbs as she heard the click-clack of its nails, and felt the charnel heat of its breath staining the night. Finally, tired of toying with its prey, it fell upon Het all at once with its limbs splayed out, and its eyes all aflame, and its lips ripped open in an awful shriek.

But it what it could not have known (and neither could Het) was that Het had not denied fear a place in her heart of hearts. It was an uncomfortable guest, but a familiar one. Unlike the golden-haired woman, fear quickened Het’s step and pumped through her blood, refining her purpose. Unlike the priest, she knew the ways in which it tugged at her, and contorted her senses, and so she made extra effort to straighten her back and steady her hand. And unlike the beggar, Het cared little for the appearance of bravery, for she did not think herself brave. Lacking an audience to impress, her resolve had not wavered in the slightest, for Het was an aspirant to Royalty, and her mind was as a mighty Tower, with walls a hundred thousand paces high.

So it was that as the monster dove at Het, and reached out with all its hooks and nails and instruments of death, Het struck out with her eyes and limbs all filled with lightning. She swung with a purpose sharpened by fear into a perfect cutting edge, and smashed the demon’s brains out with a single fantastic blow. So powerful was the impact of Het’s stave upon the demon’s skull that the earth itself shook and the villagers who huddled inside their low and lonely dwellings thought the end of the world was upon them.

The demon was flung fifty paces, where it shrieked and died in spurts and spasms. And that was that.

After some pains, Het re-lit the priest’s lamp, and waited and shivered there until morning as the corpse of the beast cooled and froze, and the faint warmth of the sun bled over the horizon. Then she dragged it to the town square, and made to take down the skins hung on the great tree.

When at last the curious villagers emerged, they were exuberant, and lifted Het upon their shoulders, and spat upon the corpse of the great beast. A party was sent to find and bury the three other travelers, and the rest of the grisly display was taken down from the old tree. Het was fed thick gruel with honey, and the light and heat of the town grew in strength with the day, so that by noon, the fires in hearths were roaring, and the houses steamed in the cold, the dogs pranced in the streets, and children emerged to goggle at and pick at the monster’s corpse with sticks.

For her part, Het was happy to see a little life return, and relieved for the light of the day. She slept much of that afternoon, and through the night, and in the morning set again upon the road, glad to be rid of that place. But she took its memory with her, and kept fear a close and intimate friend. Later it would serve her well on the road.

But that is another story.

“An Atum that burns particularly bright can actually be seen as an aura or ring of light, sometimes called a halo or animus. In those warriors or sages that have cultivated enough strength, it burns as a physical, smokeless flame across their body. The sage-kings of the First Conquest were said to have golden animus that wreathed their body in flames as bright and hot as molten metal, while leaving their skin and clothing unharmed. YISUN was said to have an aura which is called The Song of Maybe. According to legend, it burned at seven hundred million degrees, and when YISUN let it burn, it was so wide that it turned the tips of the branches of the trees that hold up the corners of creation to ash.”

– Sign of Kings , attr. Barnas, Priest of YS-Het circa 250 SC